Though there are certain people who still believe that the so-called senior players who were dropped from the Flames squad could have made a difference during the first leg of the Africa Nations Cup qualifier in Swaziland last weekend, I beg to differ.<\/p>\n
There have been a lot of hullabaloos after the Flames drew 2-2 in Mbabane to collect a single point from two games. Malawi lost the first game at home 2-1 to Zimbabwe, a game which had the majority of the so-called senior players.<\/p>\n
Fam spent K105 million preparing for the Zimbabwe match. The team played several strength-testing matches, including against Egypt, but in the end the so-called senior players decided to pay us back with a loss.<\/p>\n
That is the loss that derailed our chances of qualifying for the Gabon finals and it would take a miracle for us to recover.<\/p>\n
It is a cardinal rule in football that at home, you must not lose a match and no wonder we had to fire coach Young Chimodzi after he failed to get our campaign to a flying start with a victory.<\/p>\n
Of course, after dropping some of the so-called senior players who have been idle in their respective foreign leagues, some thought coaches, Ernest Mtawali and his assistant Nsazwirimo Ramadhan, gambled. But I repeat, I beg to differ.<\/p>\n
It was going to be suicidal to use players who were inactive and sideline the up-and-coming players like Gerald Phiri Jnr, Stanley Sanudi and John Banda who are active in their leagues.<\/p>\n
After all, Mtawali said it crystal clear that the door is not shut for the senior players; they must prove their prowess to play for the Flames.<\/p>\n
People and players should not give unnecessary pressure to the coaches after all this is the time for them to start preparing for the 2019 Africa Nations Cup team.<\/p>\n
When Mtawali mentioned Chiukepo Msowoya as one of the players who did not perform to the expected standard during a friendly game in South Africa, he proved the coach wrong by scoring in Swaziland. That is the spirit of a professional player.<\/p>\n
It must be emphasized that no one is guaranteed a place in the Flames. This is the attitude that has been destroying Malawi football. Coaches must pick players on merit.<\/p>\n
Coming back with a point from Swaziland is no mean achievement. Lest we forget that it is the same Swaziland that caused untold misery on Guinea after they played them in a neutral venue in Casablanca, Morocco. And the team also had a good run at the just ended Cosafa Cup<\/p>\n
In modern football, there are no underdogs and places are not guaranteed in the team. No wonder, Nigeria coach Sunday Oliseh had to do without Mikel Obi and a few other pampered passengers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Though there are certain people who still believe that the so-called senior players who were dropped from the Flames squad could have made a difference during the first leg of the Africa Nations Cup qualifier in Swaziland last weekend, I beg to differ. There have been a lot of hullabaloos after the Flames drew 2-2 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8622"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8627,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8622\/revisions\/8627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}